YAY! Mermaids! Love mermaids and the cover, so reading this is a no brainer. I immediately thought of Splash, only in reverse, the girl ‘falls’ in the water and falls in love with the ‘boy’. I’m hooked.

Updrift by Errin Stevens is Kate’s life from the time she is five years old to adulthood. I love seeing her grow and develop from an introverted nerd, to a strong, determined woman with desires that will not be denied and one who knows the difference between right and wrong and will step up.

After the death of her father, Kate and her mother move from Kansas to Griffin Bay, North Carolina for a fresh start.

Kate is confused about all the secrecy surrounding her and the push for her to fill her days with tons of schoolwork, an internship, and little to no socializing, especially with Gabe. And Gabe? And, now that they were meeting after being kept apart for so long, is he still interested in her? Were they being kept apart on purpose…And, what now?

Kate and Gabe do not sense the danger coming their way, but I do and I fear for them. What could they do, even if they knew?

I love all things in their mer world. They have their own set of rules and customs, but there are those who think changes need to be made. After all, it is the 21st century.

I haven’t read a book quite like Updrift and Errin Stevens’ mer world had me thinking, hey can I play too? Who wouldn’t want to swim with the fishes…in a good way?

I loved it and if you love mermaids as much as I do, this is one you want on your reading list. I want more, and thank goodness I have Breakwater, the second book in The Mer Chronicles waiting for me on my Kindle. As a matter of fact, I cannot wait and will begin…NOW.

Only as I'm reviewing these books do I realize just how many 'scary' books I read at the end of last year (and how many more I've just now added to my TRL). That's how you know that I'm a 'whatever I feel like reading' reader/'I'm interested in this topic for the next 3 books and then I'm going to wildly change interests' reader. [A/N: I couldn't remember the term 'mood reader' to save my life when I was originally drafting this post. I chose to leave that crazy line in there because it cracks me up.] All of this is to set up today's book which is The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Mahnke. I saw an ad for this in a subway station and it wasn't the title that caught my eye but the author. I had been an avid listener of his podcast (named Lore unsurprisingly) last year and then as is my way (especially with podcasts) I had totally forgotten about it. Once I started reading the book I realized that it was essentially composed of transcripts from his podcast episodes. (Guess it's a good thing I didn't listen to all of them.) The book is broken down into categories about different creatures from folklore. Two examples: vampires and zombies. Vampires could have been created because of a disease whereby people were pale, sensitive to sunlight, and craved blood. (And then there was Vlad the Impaler who is perhaps the most well-known nightwalker. (Quick note: Nightwalker is not a cool name for a vampire like I had originally thought but I'm gonna just pretend that it is cause it's better than repeating the word vampire ad nauseum.)) Zombies were most likely inspired by victims of tuberculosis (the living dead) and the large numbers of people who were pronounced dead then subsequently rose from their graves. (This is a real thing and will perhaps explain why more people choose cremation these days.) Mahnke also discusses the history of hauntings and the popularity of the spirtualist movement among many other topics of the supernatural. He has a way of simultaneously debunking these theories while giving the impression that we should still remain open-minded. It's an interesting read especially if you haven't really delved too deep into this subject area and you want to get the rundown. 8/10

Monstrous Creatures is the first in a planned trilogy and I think there's also a tv show in the works. I guess I'm not the only one interested in the supernatural. ;-)

This is a fascinating yet flawed book. Robert Seidensticker's argument is that people have long overestimated the speed of technological change, which he demonstrates by surveying the decades of grandiose predictions that have fallen flat. From them he derives a series of "high-tech myths" that serve as a commonality running through many of these overestimates, before concluding by drawing some conclusions as to why people do that and how they might avoid making such mistakes in the future. Seidensticker's thesis is a credible one, and his examples show how it has merit, but his analysis suffers from a degree of confirmation bias by cherry-picking his examples and ignoring or glancing over ones which might require a greater degree of qualification. Had he pursued a more nuanced study he might have produced a more valuable examination of human reaction to technological change, though it would probably not have been as forceful as what he does provide his readers

Irene is dead, stuck in Purgatory, trying to return to Earth as a guardian angel.

Her traveling companion, Andras, is a 12th century Spanish knight, dead since 1911. Most of the time he is invisible. It takes tremendous effort for him to appear in ghostly form. Makes me think of when Bobby was a ghost in the Supernatural TV show.

They have a psychic link.

Are there things worse than death? You betcha.

Ya want to know what it’s like being in a crystal ball? Ask Irene. Even dead, her impatient recklessness has her in trouble.

Can a ghost burn, feel pain, be tortured, die again?

Irene worked through her fear, knowing they would all die if she didn’t persevere, push through, overcome.

I have been loving this series ever since I read Hereafter. I knew it would be a different kind of ghost story and Terri Bruce’s imagination and creativity have taken me into a world both wondrous and frightening, and I am so happy I am only here as a visitor.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Irene, which is included in the Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set. I will be reviewing more of the books, so keep in touch and we’ll talk more.

The story of the American Revolution is well known and thought of as gospel by average Americans, but is that story more myth than history? Ray Raphael in his book, Founding Myths, aims to tell the true patriotic history behind the stories told about the American Revolution.

Investigating thirteen prominent stories surrounding the Revolutionary era, Raphael attempts to put the actual people and events in context of their time while demythologizing the past. Some of the stories are that of individuals like Paul Revere, Molly Pitcher, and Sam Adams or such events like Yorktown ending the war, the Continental Army surviving Valley Forge, and the events before Lexington and Concord. While a few myths that Raphael covered have been demystified by some pop-history documentaries since before and after the publishing of this book and others that a well-read history enthusiast already knows are false, there was one that completely surprised me and that was the events of 1774 that led up to the Lexington and Concord.

Although I knew the actual history behind the myths Raphael covered, this book was still a pleasant read if you can persevere through the repetitious references to films like The Patriot and Raphael’s continual hyping of the Massachusetts revolution of 1774. While I understood the reference to The Patriot given its prominence around the time of the book’s writing but it could have been toned down. Raphael’s description of the events in Massachusetts in 1774 are really eye-opening but he keeps on bringing them up throughout the book and given he already written a book about the subject before this one it makes it feel like he’s attempting to use one book to sell another. Finally, Raphael’s brings up how the mythical stories he is writing about are in today’s textbooks in each chapter and while I think this was book information, it might have been better if he had moved that into his concluding chapter alone.

Founding Myths is fascinating reading for both general and knowledgeable history readers which is a credit to Ray Raphael’s research, yet there are pitfalls that take some of the joy out of reading this book. While I recommend this book, just be weary of the repetitious nature that I described above.

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